He sits in the subway cart reading when they pull up at the next stop. He glances up absent mindedly to check where he is and it's then he sees her boarding the cart. He watches as she worms her way through the crowd, her eyes on the empty seat almost opposite him, concentrating on not hitting the other passengers with her bag or dropping her take-away coffee. It isn't until she sits down and wedges her bag between her feet that she looks up. He raises a hand in a half wave, feeling very awkward but still wanting to acknowledge her.
She looks surprised to see him, probably just as surprised as he is to see her, but returns the wave by mouthing "hi" and removing her iPod earbuds from her ears. She hasn't seen him since Leos funeral and even then she'd just caught a glimpse as they were filing out, him standing awkwardly at the back.
For a moment the people in the subway cart shift, blocking their view, but she leans around them.
"It's good to see you again, Toby."
He gives that half-twitching smile shes seen a few times before.
"You too, Ellie, though I hardly expected to see you here in New York."
"I'm here for a conference for a few days; and to look at apartments and schools, Vic has been offered a job here." Ellie smiled as she spoke, looking happy and comfortable.
"My dad said that you're lecturing at Columbia now. How are you finding it?"
"If you ignore the terrible punctuation, then it's fine." Toby is about to continue, when the subway cart shudders to a halt at the next stop and the people in the aisle move again, blocking their view and halting the conversation.
When the cart moves away the people spread out a bit and Ellie glances over at Toby, studying him for a few seconds before looking away again. Toby glances back and forth a few times, each glance just missing Ellie's until they meet and she smiles nervously.
Their gaze lasts for a little too long and Ellie blushes slightly. She nervously tucks her hair behind her left ear and her action combined with the force of the cart stopping again knocks the sunglasses from her head.
Ellie stands with the crowd, "This is my stop. It's been good to see you again, Toby."
Toby nods and gives a slight smile, "Take care, Ellie."
As Ellie moves away Toby notices her sunglasses lying on the seat, he quickly moves forward and picks them up but Ellie is already moving away, along the platform. He returns to his seat and slips the sunglasses into his pocket; he would return them in time.